Category Archives: George Bush

Moveon.org has a new trivia quiz/advert about McCain and Bush similarities. All stuff most everybody who’s been paying attention knows, but it might be fun to email to your friends, coworkers or family members who haven’t.

Randi Rhodes gave a speech in Detriot for the 50th Anniversary Celebration of Peace Action in Michigan on November 11th, 2007. Representative John “I was actually for impeachment before I was against impeachment” Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced her. Randi gave about a 38 minute speech stating what progressive democrats believe in, and also laid out numerous high crimes and misdemeanors of Mr’s Bush and Cheney. Her speech’s pro-impeachment message was aimed especially at Mr. Conyers, who was sitting about 20 feet away from the podium.

The video is long, Randi’s “We believe” theme is gratingly repetitive by the end, and you can tell she is scared to death of public speaking, but her message is clear, eloquent, and 100% true. Definitely worth watching.

All those who support starting impeachment proceedings against VP Richard B. Cheney should call Rep. Conyers and let their voice be heard.

America has no King. America needs no King. Save the Republic–Impeach Bush and Cheney.

I’m sorry to say this post continues my unhealthy fixation on Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson. I just can’t seem to quit the ugly SOB. Every time I examine the Thompson campaign, I see some eeiry similarities to the 2000 campaign of our now-overlord and president George W. Bush. And that scares the piss out of me. OK, it doesn’t “scare” me, but it worries me more than a little.

Here are the things I’ve noticed to make me thing Fred!2008 is like W in 2000:

The myth that Fred is a regular “aw gee shucks” redneck who likes flannel shirts, nascar, and pick-up trucks. In 2000 we were told W. Bush was a good old boy who America wanted to have a beer with (he though he says he’s a recovering alcoholic and shouldn’t be around booze–but I digress).

The elite, “mainstream media” is painting Fred Thompson as lazy, uninterested in the procedures of government, and generally is ridiculing his whole campaign. In 2000, the media’s story on Bush was “he’s stupid.” Now, you know and I know Bush is stupid. And Thompson probably is lazy, but anytime the “elite”, “liberal”, “mainstream” media says something, there is a certain percentage of the voting population that softens to the “victim” of the media’s “biased” portrayal.

Thompson has shown time and again that he is a partisan loyal to party over “law and order”. The biggest example of this was Thompson’s decision to leak confidential details of the Watergate investigation to president Nixon. Thompson, rather than deny this, was proud of it. His loyalty to party led him to stomp on the Constitution and the “rule of law” ostensibly to keep a corrupt regime one step ahead of the investigating committee. Thompson was also a vocal supporter of convicted criminal I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Thompson backed Libby all the way and was a large contributor to Libby’s legal defense fund–he even threw a fund raiser at his McLean, Virginia home to raise lawyer money for good ‘ol loyal Scooter. Never forget how the Republican party, like the mafia, values and rewards loyalty. President Bush was elected on a platform of loyalty and service to the “haves and have more.”

The quote in the title is by Andrew Hamilton, Philadelphia lawyer and uncle of Alexander Hamilton.

Every now and again, I unplug and crack open one of my aged Grollier’s Encyclopedias, circa 1954, and learn something new (to me, anyway). I refuse to part with these books, as I’ve loved them since I was a child and discovered them on my father’s book shelf. They were magical then, and even more so now, when I recognize more of the people, places and things–and grasp their meaning and significance. Today I was poking around my basement and spotted the Grollier’s books. I opened A Treasury of the World’s Great Speeches and —-SHAZAM—-found oratorical gold:

It is natural, it is a privilege, I will go farther, it is a right, which all free men claim, that they are entitled to complain when they are hurt. They have a right publicly to remonstrate against the abuses of power in the strongest terms, to put their neighbors upon their guard against the craft or open violence of men in authority, and to assert with courage the sense they have of the blessings of liberty, the value they put upon it, and their resolution at all hazards to preserve it as one of the greatest blessings heaven can bestow….

The loss of liberty, to a generous mind, is worse than death. And yet we know that there have been those in all ages who for the sake of preferment, or some imaginary honor, have freely lent a helping hand to oppress, nay to destroy, their country. This brings to mind that saying of the immortal Brutus, when he looked upon the creatures of Caesar, who were very great men, but by no means good men: “You Romans,” said Brutus, “if yet I may call you so, consider what you are doing; remember that you are assisting Caesar to forge those very chains which one day he will make you yourselves wear.” This is what every man who values freedom ought to consider. He should act by judgment and not by affection or self-interest; for where those prevail, no ties of either country or kindred are regarded; as upon the other hand, the man who loves his country prefers its liberty to all other considerations, well knowing that without liberty life is a misery….

Power may justly be compared to a great river. While kept within its due bounds it is both beautiful and useful. But when it overflows its banks, it is then too impetuous to be stemmed; it bears down all before it, and brings destruction and desolation wherever it comes. If, then, this is the nature of power, let us at least do our duty, and like wise men who value freedom use our utmost care to support liberty, the only bulwark against lawless power, which in all ages has sacrificed to its wild lust and boundless ambition the blood of the best men that ever lived….

I hope to be pardoned, Sir, for my zeal upon this occasion. It is an old ans wise caution that “when our neighbor’s house is on fire, we ought to take care of our own.” For though, blessed by God, I live in a government where liberty is well understood and freely enjoyed, yet experience has shown us all (I am sure it has to me) that a bad precedent in one government is soon set up for an authority in another; and therefore I cannot but think it mine and very honest man’s duty that, while we pay all due obedience to men in authority we ought at the same time to be upon our guard against power wherever we apprehend that it may affect ourselves or our fellow subjects.

You see that I labor under the weight of many years, and am bowed down with great infirmities of body. Yet, old and weak as I am, I should think it my duty, if required, to go to the utmost part of the land where my services could be of any use in assisting to quench the flame of prosecutions upon informations, set on foot by the government to deprive a people of the right of remonstrating and complaining, too, of the arbitrary attempts of men in power….

But to conclude: The question before the Court and you, Gentlemen of the jury, is not of small or private concern. It is not the cause of one poor printer, nor of New York alone, which you are now trying. No! It may in its consequence affect every free man that lives under a British government on the main of America. It is the best cause. It is the cause of liberty. And I make no doubt but your upright conduct this day will not only entitle you to the love and esteem of your fellow citizens, but every man who prefers freedom to a life of slavery will bless and honor you as men who have baffled the attempt of tyranny, and by an impartial and uncorrupt verdict have laid a noble foundation for securing to ourselves, our posterity, and our neighbors, that to which nature and the laws of our country have given us a right to liberty of both exposing and opposing arbitrary power (in these parts of the world at least) by speaking and writing truth.

The above passage is from Andrew Hamilton’s impassioned defense of printer/publisher John Peter Zenger on August 4, 1735. Yes, 1735–a full 40 years before Lexington and Concord and the American Revolution. Zenger was on trial for seditious libel for publishing a newspaper called the New York Weekly Journal (NYWJ) that was critical of the Governor of New York. His paper arose as a response to a newspaper called the New York Gazette, which was a mouthpiece for the Governor (today, we have something similar called Fox News). After first trying to stop Zenger by seizing and burning copies of the NYWJ, the Governor next arrested and imprisoned Zenger for seditious libel and set a ridiculously high bail.

Although Governor Cosby seemingly stacked the deck against Zenger by hand-picking the judges, the power of Hamilton’s oration compelled the jury to see justice done, and Zenger was found not guilty. The verdict didn’t change the libel law then. But you can see Andrew Hamilton’s fingerprint on the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. His oratorical triumph in 1735 paved the way for a free press.

George William Curtis, a famous orator and publicist, spoke of Hamilton’s court victory in an address before the New York State Press Association in 1881:

. . .when the Zenger jury cried ‘Not Guilty’, and Andrew Hamilton left the courtroom, like an aureole around his reverend head shone the freedom of the American press. The thunder of the cannon, the music of the bells, the joyous feasting, and the fervidly grateful address of the city, saluted not the orator only, but American liberty which had caught a fresh breath of life from his burning lips.

I will think of Zenger and Hamilton every time I see a headline that reads “Surrender Monkees” or hear the President say “if you’re not with us you’re against us.” The foolish notions of our wannabe “Unitary Executive” and bleating of his blatantly pro-power propagandists squander Hamilton’s gift and ignore his truths. They don’t love liberty and they don’t know what it means to be an American or a patriot.

Reading Hamilton’s words filled me with hope. Our founders were great man with lofty ideals, and the living document that is the U.S. Constitution is their legacy to us. As much as George W. Bush and his wholly-rotten administration try to take our liberty; spy on us; murder,enslave and torture others in our name; and destroy the rule of law, we must continue to resist–in any way we can according to the laws of this country. We must follow the example of John Peter Zenger and Andrew Hamilton, who stood against the tyrannical Governor Cosby.

*I found much of Hamilton’s defense of Zenger on Doug Linder’s Zenger Trial page. I copied the text of Andrew Hamilton’s words but none of Linder’s, which are copyrighted.

From a New York Times editorial on July 29th, Mr. Gonzales’s Never-Ending Story (read here):

Both men say that in March 2004 — when Mr. Gonzales was still the White House counsel — the Justice Department refused to endorse a continuation of the wiretapping program because it was illegal. (Mr. Comey was running the department temporarily because Attorney General John Ashcroft had emergency surgery.) Unwilling to accept that conclusion, Vice President Dick Cheney sent Mr. Gonzales and another official to Mr. Ashcroft’s hospital room to get him to approve the wiretapping.

The New York Times knows Cheney ordered this, how? Regardless, if confirmed as true, and VP Cheney sent Gonzo and Card to get the approval for the illegal program from ill, recovering, doped-up, bedridden, and no-longer Attorney General, John Ashcroft, does that mean Impeachment–of Cheney–is back on the table?

Short term goals:

Subpoena Card

Subpoena Ashcroft

Subpoena Ashcroft’s wife (she was in the Hospital room–and she answered call from White House)

Can you imagine John McCain, Dick Cheney, Joe Lieberman, or George Bush confronting the REAL source of islamic extremists and terrorists?

From the LATimes story Saudi’s Role in Iraq Insurgency Outlined, July 15, 2007 by Ned Parker:

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said.

Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, said the senior U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject’s sensitivity. It is apparently the first time a U.S. official has given such a breakdown on the role played by Saudi nationals in Iraq’s Sunni Arab insurgency.

He said 50% of all Saudi fighters in Iraq come here as suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis.